


We all fall down

by EnlacingLines



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Background Yuriashe, Character Death, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mentions of Ashelix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25637116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnlacingLines/pseuds/EnlacingLines
Summary: Ashe prayed once. Many times.But the Goddess does not answer, or does not care. Now it’s more performance than anything else.And still he enacts the rituals and listens to his classmates as they do not question the way of things, obeying the Church and their faith.It’s normal. It’s easy. And he burns with something so bright and bloody he is almost afraid.A Crimson Flower route Ashe centric story.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	We all fall down

**Author's Note:**

> This is...not my usual. But it was fun trying something different. I had a craving to write sadness, so I've given this a go! 
> 
> Thank you to the lovely MxTicketyBoo for betaing <3
> 
> Enjoy!

The children in the city sing songs about death. 

Ashe’s own childhood evaporated so smoothly he cannot recall any nuances, so he’s not one to participate in games or chants. His pastimes all have purpose, learning to catch up with the others his age; who all fight, read and count while he’s been stealing his way to survival. 

It lifts his heart to witness such sweetness, see children playing as he gets older, watch his siblings join in and learn so quickly how to forget frozen nights in the streets in favour of hopscotch and clapping songs. 

Most of the rhymes are nonsense. Some are secret methods of teaching. He listens as he moves through Castle Gaspard, catching snatches of the latest one, pausing to watch in the fading light as a reminder there’s joy in the world. 

On this day, he sees one song the whole way through. Watches them hold hands and spin, singing, laughing then falling to the grass as the bun in his hand slips from his fingers. 

Ashe knows of the pox that floods skin, that infects the lungs with rattling breath until blood clogs speech. The few dimpled circles on cheeks which three days later could result in convulsions. Ashe has carried bodies, dug graves with tiny arms because there was no one else to, and they couldn’t possibly leave their loved ones there to rot or become carrion. 

And the children laugh as they mimic the death scenes of his parents, rising again to grip tiny hands and sing once more, tumbling down and down in unknowing mockery. It’s never seemed clearer to him just how broken the universe is than in that second; that these sing-songs are of horrors he works to erase from his siblings’ minds.

He sits there, letting it break open, that part which snapped but cannot flood for he has to keep moving, existing and protecting. He waits until it seals once more, then gets up, and returns to the Castle, back to his chores. 

_We all fall down_ , they chant as he passes. _We all fall down._

* * *

Garreg Mach is strange. He is blessed to be here, truly thankful to be given such an opportunity, each day a learning curve he absorbs and works hard to be at the same pace as the rest of his house. 

They’re nice, the Blue Lions. Friendly, good hearts, but there’s distance between him and them. They all know each other, and cannot help but hark back to childhood experiences that leave him smiling but shut out. 

He finds it odd how much their future King tries to be normal. It leaves an odd taste, although Ashe thinks it’s a kindness. Dimitri will do well, but he...does not quite understand things in the same manner as Ashe. Distance, one that takes time to overcome, no matter the willingness. At the moment it just seems stunted, puppetry almost. He’s trying too hard not to be himself. 

Perhaps it would happen. Perhaps it would be possible. But Ashe has barely begun his education when the Black Eagles students are sent to kill Lonato. 

It’s the new Professor that tells him. Byleth who sits him down in an empty room, gives him sweet apple tea as they explain, in a monotone yet oddly soothing voice, they were forced to slay his guardian. 

He doesn’t understand it, and yet he does, knows how much losing Christophe hurt. And yet the Church sent students on a mission to destroy, and it doesn’t sit well, doesn’t sit at all actually but seeps, fuels and has his hands shaking as the Professor just watches him. 

“I’ll tell Professor Hanneman you won’t be coming to class this week,” they say, but Ashe shakes his head. 

“I’m failing classes, I need to go,” he says, assuming he’s even allowed to stay here. 

“What are you having trouble with?” they ask, and it’s how he ends up with private lessons to get him up to speed while he stays away from anyone for a few days. They offer to continue tutoring him, which he accepts, seeing as Hanneman goes a little too fast in some subjects and tends to favour those with interesting Crests. 

His classmates welcome him back, all with heartfelt words, but Ashe has had platitude his whole life, and smiles them away. He’s an orphan twice through and has loss etched in his bones far stronger than love, it’s just how he’s built. 

Then Sylvain’s brother is similarly slaughtered and they both gravitate closer, strangely, without speaking or acknowledging it. Ashe sees him in the chapel holding the Lance of Ruin just sitting, without speaking, staring at the altar. 

“He keeps doing that.” 

Ashe jumps and spins around, and the person screams, which indicates exactly who is it. He’s not sure if Bernadetta is still there so waits until there’s a shuffling and she peeks around a corner. 

“Just staring, with the lance. I feel bad. His brother turned into a m-monster, but it’s still...it’s-”

“Family,” Ashe finishes gently, looking back at Sylvain bowed over. 

“Lord Lonato as well,” she whispers and Ashe closes his eyes and leans back against the heavy doors. 

Bernadetta doesn’t say anything while Ashe lets it all simmer, and he’s oddly grateful for the company and silence. She barely comes out of her room from what he’s heard so he’s unsure what she’s doing here. 

“Here. I don’t think you’ve read this. Bye!” 

Ashe opens his eyes in time to see her run out of the chapel, a book a few steps away. He picks it up, a collection of fables he hasn’t read and smiles slightly. Kindness in the dark, from a person he barely knows. It helps seal the void up once more. 

* * *

Ashe prayed once. Many times. 

He prayed when his father coughed up bile so dark it seemed like poison. But they took him away early the next morning. 

He prayed when the fever took his mother, when he nursed her for days with every remedy he could think of. But still he helped to dig her final resting place; there was hardly anyone able to hold a shovel by then. 

He prays whenever someone sneezes. He cannot help but recall the beginning of his village in the chapel each Holy Day, which became full of the sound of echoing tears as the congregation thinned to nothing. 

The Goddess does not answer, or does not care. Now it’s more performance than anything else. 

And still he enacts the rituals and listens to his classmates as they do not question the way of things, obeying the Church and their faith. 

It’s normal. It’s easy. And he burns with something so bright and bloody he is almost afraid. 

* * *

Felix is angry when he joins the Black Eagles class, which is to be expected after that kiss in the training grounds. But seeing as he could not meet Ashe’s eyes for weeks afterwards, it seems somewhat hypocritical. His new class are an odd group, but he feels slightly more comfortable with them than he ever did with the Blue Lions. 

Tiny dramas about forlorn romance though fade into the background as the world tips and crumbles around them. Captain Jeralt is killed, their Professor slices the sky open and one cannot tell enemy from friend. Ashe kills to save, and it rocks him but does not break him, and he thinks this might be telling, all things considered. 

Sylvain joins their class. He sits next to Ashe again and smiles. They do not mention the ones they’ve left behind. 

And left is truly what they do, for undercurrents build and rage until the Imperial army is marching on Garreg Mach under the banner of newly crowned Edelgard, the Flame Emperor herself. 

Ashe finds himself on a side. A side he was not born into, chosen out of some childish displeasure at his teachers and friends who were not friendly enough. Petty, simple, not a way to land yourself in nationwide conflict. 

And yet, it is better to have chosen than to blindly follow. That is one lesson he thinks Lonato has taught him. Do the unexpected, give people a chance. 

And when they do not deserve it, face them head on. Even if the odds are against you. 

* * *

Yuri smells like flora and tastes like midnight wonderings, it’s so easy to get caught up in them. Ashe has spent five years in their orbit, but it appears to be fading as he sits with Yuri in his arms, watching the night pass. 

“I’ll head out at first light, I should be able to make it by the Millennium Festival,” he says into hair still tousled and perfect. 

“Will you really hang on to such promises? It’s not the same world, starling,” Yuri says, voice on the edge of sleep, tipping their head back. 

Yuri will not ask him to stay. Ashe will not ask them to come. It’s a division of loyalty but they preserve this fragment of the early morning to forget that they have made choices which do not match. 

It hurts, greatly and yet Ashe does go and leaves another shard with someone else to bury deep. For bury Yuri he does, not too long after that parting, after a morning kiss so deep with longing and missed time. 

He doesn’t manage to kill them, only landing one arrow, but Ferdinand runs Yuri through with a lance, a clean kill. Ashe buries them with a sprig of violet he found on the journey there, his favourite flower for a love that would never be. A ring of roses lines the wayside that day, and Ashe says goodbye in the wind to that smell of fresh flowers. 

Their names he keeps in his heart. Ingrid, who fought with an axe in one shoulder. Felix, who he caught as his breath left him. Dedue, who gave up himself to a Crest stone, Ashe heart snapping as his bones broke. He sees them fall and notes the manner in which they die for loyalty to their King. Admirable, Knightly and regrettable. Ashe may be a cousin to death by now with how it’s constantly sauntered past him, but he does not believe in it’s necessity. Not in this conflict. 

He buries them all, except Dimitri. He is the best grave digger, and he likes the moment to say goodbye. Edelgard gives Dimitri an honorable burial in Faerghus, a peace offering but also what she wants to do. 

And with that, they enter the new world. 

* * *

The posies are a mix of wild lettuce and magnolia. The healers striped their village of every last morsel, the weed lessening pain and magnolia giving taste. Ashe thinks of this now in his garden, watching as the wild lettuce springs up, unannounced like weeds do. He takes that same tonic now, mixed as tea to ease constant headaches. Nostalgic numbing. 

“It’s nice here,” his sister says from the shade of the summer house, in the same way she’d say nice so long ago whenever her brother attempted to cook. Both of them have reservations about this place, he knows it. Ashe does not care that they do not see the beauty of necessity. He loves this sanctuary, coaxes to life blooms and trees to live upon one another, climb and exist in perpetual motion.

The delphinium grows tall and proud, those blue flowers so radiant and bright, seen for miles. The violets reign though, spreading where Ashe doesn’t even intend them to grow, as if he could stop them doing anything. Forget-me-nots wink, every so often appearing, a calmer, softer blue in the wake of the delphinium. He manages to settle the twilight suncups, native of Duscar, that bloom only in evening, a sharp peppery fragrance falling from their cream petals. The leftmost corner is overrun by black pansies, hardy things that are not actually black but a deep purple. 

He plucks them for the summer house occasionally. They are meant to attract love to the holder. Perhaps he should have held them long ago, in the training hall or brought them to Abyss. 

Sylvain and Bernadetta however, love the garden. They visit and drink tea for hours, laughing and watching the strange insects fly to the flowers, always mottled colours and loud. The animals that visit are wild and unsettling, yet harmless. They always seem off, as if they are one with the ghosts Ashe has immortalized here, his own patch of posies to stave off what is chasing him. 

Bernadetta brings some of her own plants that whittle these odd beings down to a calming buzz and occasional glimpse of too-bright eyes. The tomb expands and the three relax, sun on their faces as they revel in this calming wonderland. 

The summons comes as winter creeps in, Sylvain arrives not long after, picks a black pansy as Ashe holds a violet. 

“Will you go? To this Shambhala?” Ashe asks. 

For they both have responsibilities, both are carving their ways to a more equal world, without Crests or inheritance guiding the value of life. But they have wandered in the same fable for so long, the same dalliance with life and what comes after that Ashe knows the answer before Sylvain smiles. 

“Of course, they need all the help they can get.” 

Ashe locks the garden three days later. Leaves the summer house to the weeds, they can swallow it whole. Leaves the ghosts to their graves and himself to the path he’s chosen. His siblings squeeze him tightly, tell him they await his return, stubborn but hopeful things. They have never dug graves, never killed potential love and never lost themselves in memory. Just as he planned. They sing songs without meaning, without understanding the finality of truth that seeps into the consequence of living. 

It is inevitable, after all. We all fall down. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/EnlacingL/)


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